When Ken Campbell's take on NHLPA mess makes sense, the PA's in trouble

There's a helluva mess surrounding NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly and whether the NHLPA's executive board's award of a 5-year contract extension to general counsel Ian Penny without Kelly's consent, essentially instigating a coup d'etat with the goal of deposing Kelly, likely because he's followed in Ted Saskin's footsteps in taking a relatively conciliatory position toward the NHL's policies.

The scary part in all of this isn't just that the PA's old guard is attempting to return to the side door and back-room dealings, using threats, intimidation, and bullying to promote personal power plays instead of functioning as a transparent labor union which represents its 700-plus members' concerns--it's that Ken Campbell, who, alongside Kevin Dupont and Stan Fischler, is among the PA's most vociferous critics, ends up making sense in assessing the situation:

August 30, The Hockey News: [T]he reason why Kelly is under fire is that he's not Bob Goodenow, the guy the players dumped when they found he was taking too hard a line against their employers and wouldn't deliver them what he thought was a namby-pamby CBA during the lockout. If a vote is called to review Kelly's leadership and at least 25 members of the union's executive committee cast a vote and 20 of them vote to fire Kelly, he'll lose his job. And if the players think the payout they had to make to Saskin was a lot of money, they'll be staggered by the amount they'll have to give Kelly to go away.

And that's because Kelly might have one of the all-time cases for wrongful dismissal. The uprising against Kelly is being led by former ombudsman Eric Lindros, advisory board head Ron Pink and interim ombudsman Buzz Hargrove, along with some others within the current ranks of the NHLPA. So think about it. The ringleaders in Kelly's attempted lynching are a former player who has run up against the establishment at every turn and resigned from the PA because he couldn't work with Kelly (Lindros); the man who didn't get the job when the PA decided Kelly would be a better choice (Pink); and one of the most confrontational labor leaders of our generation (Hargrove).

They represent the old guard of the association whose philosophy was to oppose the league on every single issue and make a confrontation out of everything possible. All of which is fine, if that's the way the union wants to do business it certainly has the right to conduct itself in that manner.

But the question is, if that's what it wanted, why was Goodenow shown the door in the first place and why was he replaced by Kelly, who had made it clear from the start that he was going to conduct the association's business in a less confrontational way? Goodenow was deemed to be expendable when the players looked at the possibility of missing two years of paychecks and promptly soiled their pants. One season had already been wasted and even though Goodenow told players long before the lockout to prepare to sit out for as long as two seasons, when push came to shove, the players opted to get back to playing hockey and making money.

And despite the so-called salary cap, the players are doing better than they ever have before. Big money for stars hasn't gone away and the uncertainty surrounding the cap has given many of them the luxury of job security they never had under the old deal. The players are continuing to fight for the NHL to be involved in the Olympics against the league's instincts and continue to work with the league on what was supposed to be a new era of partnership.

And it's not as though Kelly has been sitting there twiddling his thumbs. Under Kelly's stewardship, the CBA has already been changed to allow teams to offer contract extensions to entry-level players a year before their contracts are set to expire and Kelly has also made valuable gains for the players when it comes to the way money for international events is paid out.

He did that by being conciliatory and firm, not confrontational and obnoxious. That's his style and the players should have known exactly what they were getting when they hired him. If they didn't and now want to change gears two years into Kelly's mandate, shame on them.

Even Chris Chelios likes the way Kelly does his job, and that tells you something.